Fundamentals: Cloud vs. In-House IT: Spend Smart in 2012

Randy George02/01/12

The New Key Metric: CPCU

Let's not debate the philosophical merits of the public cloud. It's 2012, and all but the most conservative and heavily regulated CIOs are factoring services into their long-term strategies. From a budgeting perspective, however, the "buy vs. lease" question still demands careful analysis. Imagine walking into a Best Buy and being presented with an option to lease the TV of your dreams instead of shelling out $3,000. While you might have been ready to drop the cash, most of us would take a step back and carefully assess the potential benefits of leasing instead.

IT managers are faced with similarly difficult decisions today: Shell out big dollars up front for a new SAN or ESX farm or spend on OPEX? When it comes to enterprise IT, there are a staggering number of peripheral cost factors to consider, too, as we illustrate in our sample cost-benefit analysis calculator. High availability, backups, Windows Server licensing, network and storage I/O, Internet bandwidth, staff training, network monitoring, disaster recovery ... we could go on, but you get the point. You almost need an MBA on staff.

In this report, we'll detail strategies for deciding where leveraging hosted services make sense by quantifying the major cost factors that should go into your decision. (S4360212)